Ryan Day was proud of his team’s performance late in Ohio State’s 20-13 win over Penn State.

The Buckeyes had their backs up against the wall midway through the fourth quarter. Nursing a 7-point lead, the Nittany Lions had first and goal at the 3-yard line with the potential to tie the game if they found the end zone.

Ohio State’s defense made sure that didn’t happen. The Buckeyes stuffed 3 straight run plays then forced an incompletion on fourth and goal. The job wasn’t finished there, however. Ohio State still had to bleed out the remaining 5:13 on the clock. It did so with a dominant final drive — 11 plays, 58 yards as every last second fell off the clock.

After the clock struck 0:00, Day spoke with FOX sideline reporter Jenny Taft about the final defensive stand as well as the game-sealing offensive series.

“Just the toughness overall,” Day said. “Just to stand in there and get that stand like that. It just shows you the grit and toughness of this team. There’s a smile right here on my face. I’m really proud of this team and the physicality.

“And then to get the ball on the 1-yard line and then finish the game the way we did on offense, it just shows the physicality of this team, the toughness of this team to go get this win. It fells really good. We’re going to have some fun in Columbus tonight.”

Here’s video of Day’s full postgame interview with Taft:

Ohio State now controls its own destiny all the way through to the Big Ten title game. The Buckeyes will host Purdue in Week 11.